Wednesday, December 12, 2007

RUN LIVE - open source test drive CD's

www.knoppix.orgfedoraproject.org

OK, what the heck is RUN LIVE? Well, you simply pop a CD or DVD full of free software in you CD/DVD player and reboot your machine. It runs ENTIRELY OFF THE CD and out of MEMORY, NOTHING IS INSTALLED on the HARD DRIVE and nothing is ALTERED on the HARD DRIVE.

The software gives you a chance to try different versions of LINUX on your system without having to install them (See the LINUX blogs). But wait, if you don't need the HARD DRIVE to run it, doesn't that mean that you could use this RUN LIVE stuff to boot a machine with a DEAD HARD DRIVE ?? Sure. Then, in the event that your hard drive is OK and just the operating system is damaged, you can look for and COPY YOUR FILES from the HARD DRIVE to a USB FLASH (PEN) DRIVE.

COOL? Darn right it is. Get your data saved before the GEEK SQUAD reinstalls the OS and you lose your data. There are other COOL applications for this technology too, but I try to keep these short.